Donatello's Duffel
by hummerhouse
Summary: Don's duffel bag can be a bit of a nuisance at times, but there is a very good reason for him to carry it everywhere he goes. Rated for minor violence. One shot.


Donatello's Duffel

Racing across rooftops during patrols, Don was always slightly hindered by the duffel bag strapped over his shoulder and more often than not he left it behind. Tonight for some reason it had seemed to beckon to him, insisting that Don take the bag despite the difficulties he knew it would cause him.

Sure enough, his brothers were outpacing him at every turn and Don ground his back teeth together. Even though they knew his bag weighed around forty pounds with all the things he carried in it, Raph and Mikey were not averse to teasing him about being slow. Leo never said a disparaging word; the Turtle leader understood the importance of Don's bag of tricks far too much to taunt him about it.

Don was more cautious in his jumps due to the bag's weight throwing off his center of gravity, so his brothers had already crossed to another rooftop at least ten seconds ahead of him. As he got ready to leap, a sound from below caught his attention and he skid to a stop.

Leo glanced back and saw Don turn away from them, heading towards the edge of the roof that would give him a view of the street below. Raising a hand, his gesture stopped his two youngest brothers. Pointing in Don's direction, Leo changed course and silently leaped back over to the building that the genius was on.

Raph and Mikey followed suit, their loud exuberance from earlier completely swallowed by that simple sign from Leonardo. They were no longer playful brothers; now they were ninjas on high alert.

Sliding up next to Don, Leo peered over the roof and witnessed what his brother was viewing. Across the street from the building they were on was a small neighborhood bank. A large black van without license plates was parked in front of it and four armed men were standing on the sidewalk. All four wore black from head to toe, with ski masks covering their heads.

A shrill cry echoed the one that had caught Don's attention and the doors on the back of the van were thrown open by a fifth masked man, who jumped out and dragged another man out with him. This man wore trousers and a pajama top, but no shoes; obviously having been pulled hastily from his bed.

The kidnapped man jerked to try to dislodge the masked man's grip, but his kidnapper spun him and slammed him against one of the van's doors.

"Try that again and you'll be minus one brat," the masked man hissed.

Behind them another masked man exited the van and began pulling children from the back, shoving them towards his compatriots on the sidewalk. Soon five children dressed in their pajamas were standing huddled together, all five quite young.

"Don't hurt my children," the kidnapped man begged.

"Do exactly what I tell you to and I won't touch 'em," the masked man said, twisting his hand in his victim's shirt and yanking him onto the sidewalk.

"My wife," the kidnapped man called, looking back towards the van.

The sixth masked man jumped back into the van and pulled the doors shut behind him.

"Let's make sure we understand each other, Smythe," the kidnapper who appeared to be the leader of the group said. "You're the bank manager and you can open everything. As long as you do so, none of the kids get hurt. If you take too damn long doing what you're told, your wife is gonna be lying face down in the gutter and she ain't gonna be breathing. Are we clear?"

"Yes," Smythe answered breathlessly, reaching into his pocket for a set of keys.

Leo spun away from the scene and kneeled down to confer with his brothers.

"Why aren't they worried about the bank's cameras, Donny? I know they aren't recognizable in those getups, but don't the camera feeds go to a monitoring company?" Leo asked.

"No," Don answered. "Small banks like this one can only compete with their larger counterparts by holding costs down. The cameras aren't video surveillance; they operate by a high frequency feed connected to recording devices."

"Onsite or offsite?" Leo asked.

Don shrugged. "Could be either. My bet would be offsite because it would give them an extra layer of security for a minimal amount of money."

They could hear the children crying and Mikey took a quick peek down. All five masked men were hustling the bank manager and his children inside the building.

"So how do we avoid the cameras?" Mikey asked in a harsh whisper. "'Cause we better do something quick."

"I had the strangest feeling earlier that I was going to need my bag tonight," Don said, opening his duffel and removing a transmitter. "Give me a second to find the camera's frequency and I can jam the signal. The only thing that will be recorded while this is on will be grainy, completely unrecognizable, and impossible to piece together later."

"Ya' sure about that genius?" Raph asked. "I don't want my picture plastered across the morning news."

"I'm sure," Don said without looking up. "Got it."

"What's the plan, Fearless?" Raph looked over at Leo expectantly.

"Mikey and Don, you take care of the guy in the van and check on the children's mother," Leo said. "Do it from the street side of the van in case one of the kidnapper's is watching through a front window. Am I safe in assuming they made the manager disable all of the alarms, Don?"

"I'd say so," Don said. "The building is too small to have very many perimeters and shutting everything down ensures that no silent alarm can be triggered."

"Then Raph and I are going to drop onto the roof and find another way inside," Leo said. "Once you two make sure mom is safe, join us in the bank; I'll text you so you'll know how we got in."

"Good, let's do this," Raph said, standing abruptly.

Leo was on his tail as the pair dashed across the roof and jumped over to the next one, choosing a spot further down the street to cross over so that anyone who was still in the van wouldn't see them.

Don and Mikey moved off in the opposite direction, climbing down from the rooftops a block away from the bank. Standing in a dark alley, they watched the van for a few minutes but saw absolutely no movement from inside.

"Do you think there's only one guy in there with mom?" Mikey asked.

"Unless they were jammed inside like sardines, I'm fairly certain there's just one," Don answered. "Probably the getaway driver."

"That's taking a big chance leaving a black van parked in front of a bank in the middle of the night," Mikey said.

"They must know there are no regular patrols in this area," Don guessed. "Cross the street?"

"Yeah," Mikey said, jumping forward and hitting the middle of the street on his hands.

Springing onto the opposite sidewalk, Mikey dove into a shadowed alcove and waited for his brother. Shoving the duffel further onto his carapace, Don followed suit, moving quickly enough so that the bag didn't shift.

"Well, this is great," Mikey huffed. "We've got one block of open sidewalk and only a few trash cans between us and the windshield."

"Hang on a second," Don said, swinging his bag around to his front so he could delve into it. Bringing up his night vision goggles, he looked into the darkness of the vans interior.

"He's not in the front," Don said. "Maybe mom's giving him a hard time. There's a curtain between the front seats and the back of the van. Stay low and move fast."

Mikey didn't need to be told twice. Hunched over, he ran in the shadows of several adjoining buildings until he was close to the van; then cut across to squat next to the front bumper. Don joined him two seconds later.

Lowering his goggles from off his forehead, Don stood slowly and glanced inside the van. There was still no sign of the driver.

"The doors are probably locked," Mikey whispered.

"Yeah." Don stuck the goggles back into his bag and produced a lock picking kit.

Crawling around to the side of the van, he deftly and silently unlocked the passenger door. Gingerly pulling it open so as to make no sound, Don held the door and Mikey climbed inside.

A gruff sound told them that Mikey's weight had alerted someone and the youngest disappeared through the curtains. Don dropped his bag on the street and dove in after his brother.

He was just in time to see Mikey slug the masked driver into unconsciousness. On the floor lay a middle aged woman; bound, gagged, and out cold.

Don kneeled next to her and checked her pulse, noticing a sizeable lump on her forehead.

"She's okay; her pulse rate is good," Don said. "I guess this guy was worried she was going to die and wanted to make sure he got her out of here fast if she did."

Mikey found a coil of rope and quickly hog tied the kidnapper in the most uncomfortable position he could think of.

"Untie her?" Mikey asked, gesturing to the mom.

"No," Don lifted her and placed her on a cushioned bench seat. "If she comes to while we're inside she might do something awkward. She's fine like this; her husband can untie her when we get him out of the bank."

"Cool," Mikey said as he followed Don back out through the passenger door, reaching over first to grab the keys from the ignition.

As Mikey pushed the van's door closed without banging it, Don checked his shell cell.

"Leo and Raph went in through the maintenance door on the roof," Don said.

He and Mikey took the fire escape up to the rooftop of the building next to the bank, and then leaped down onto the bank from there. They immediately spotted the door that their brothers had left open and took the stairs down to the second floor.

Raph met them in a long corridor that ran between a set of offices.

"Where's Leo?" Don asked.

"At the top of the stairs keeping an eye on our friends," Raph said. "We need ta lose some of those interior lights; ya' got any ideas brainiac?"

They nearly reached the stairs when Leo came around a corner to meet them.

"Keep your voices down," Leo said under his breath. "One of the kidnappers is standing in front of the kids in the main lobby area, straight ahead ten paces and to your right after you reach the bottom of the staircase. One of them is with dad behind the main counter. After you clear the small hallway there's an office on the left and after that is the door that takes you back to where they are.

"The third man is directly in front of the entrance on the right and both the fourth and fifth are against the farthest wall, about thirty paces once you clear the hallway. We need to time this to the second; I don't want those men to have enough time to start shooting."

"I saw the maintenance room when we came down the stairs," Don said. "Let me get inside and see if the electrical panel is in there."

The four brothers made their way to the room Don had indicated. Quickly picking the lock, Don stepped inside and saw exactly what he was looking for. Yanking open the metal door of the main electrical panel, he glanced over the interior and then turned towards Leo.

"I can set a small explosive on a timer in here," Don told his brother. "The charge will fry the connections but won't spark so we won't have to worry about burning the building down. As soon as it goes off, so will the lights."

"What about the emergency lights?" Leo asked.

"We'll have five seconds before they kick on," Don said.

Leo thought for a minute and then said, "All right. Set the timer for fifteen seconds. That will give us time to make it down the stairs and to the end of the hallway, with a second or two to spare so we can make sure none of the players have moved.

"Donny, you break right immediately; take out the man guarding the kids and then get them someplace that's safe. Mikey and Raph, you've got the other three. I'd rather not have the kids see blood, but if you have to throw a shuriken or your sai, do it.

"I'm going after the leader. I'm smaller than you three so I'm a better fit behind that counter."

"Your katanas ain't," Raph reminded him.

"I guess my fists will have to do," Leo replied with a quick flash of teeth. "Go ahead and set the charge, Don."

Donatello had already dug out the things he needed and set to work. It took him less than a minute to get everything ready.

Turning to look over his shoulder, he saw his siblings standing in the corridor and lifted his thumb. When Leo nodded, Don activated the timer, scooped up his duffel, and darted out of the room to follow his brothers.

At the bottom of the stairs, the foursome crept forward in total silence, hugging the walls. Don heard one of the little boys say, "Stop crying Walter."

"I'm scared, Damien," a little girl whined, her voice pitched high.

"Katie, shh," the oldest boy said, but not quickly enough.

"Shut up!" the man guarding them snapped. "If ya' don't shut up little girl, I'm gonna chop off all your hair."

The threat only made the hysterical child cry louder. As the man growled in annoyance, the lights went out.

Don lunged to the right, feeling Mikey speed past him. Going directly to where he'd last seen the man who was standing over the children, Don spotted his now blind quarry, silently thankful that his eyes could so easily adjust to near blackness.

Bo out, Don snapped it around and smashed the end into the man's temple. The strike was delivered with such force that the man was lifted off his feet and hit the ground hard, his weapon flying out of his hand.

Then the emergency lights flickered on. Across the room, Don saw one of the kidnappers down on his knees as he clutched an arm with a shuriken buried in it. Mikey's nunchucks were out as he hammered the shotgun out of the hands of the man nearest the entrance.

A glance showed Don that Raph was engaged in a similar battle against the last of the men. Sure that his brothers were fine, Don turned his attention to the kids, who were staring at him in wide eyed amazement.

Dropping his duffel, Don spread his arms and said, "Get in the corner kids, quick."

As they scrambled into the nearby corner of the room, Don grabbed the lobby couch and flipped it over, shoving it in front of the children.

"Stay down," Don told them, watching as the oldest boy caught the littlest in his arms and pulled him down to the ground.

One little girl, with blonde hair down to her waist, was leaning over the couch staring at him. As Don opened his mouth to tell her to duck, she pointed and screamed.

The man Don had hit was staggering to his feet, the vase from a nearby table in his hands.

Spinning on his heels, Don squatted and thrust his bo forward simultaneously as he jabbed the end into the kidnappers gut. The air left the man's lungs in a loud 'whoosh' and the color receded from his face as he keeled over into unconsciousness.

Backing towards the kids, Don saw his two brightly banded brothers knock out the other three watchdogs. Raph took a moment to retrieve his shuriken from the kidnapper's arm, and then used the man's own mask to tie off the wound.

"Sweet," murmured a youthful voice full of admiration and Don turned to see all five of the children peeking over the bottom of the couch.

Just then Leo came through the open doorway to their left, dragging the unconscious leader of the gang by his shirt collar. Directly behind him was the bank manager, his eyes anxious as he searched the lobby for his children.

"Daddy!" they all screamed at once and darted around the couch to pounce on their father.

"Oh my god!" Smythe exclaimed, dropping to one knee as he caught them in his arms, his eyes filling with tears.

Looking up at Leo, he said, "My wife, she's still out there with another one of these men."

"She's fine," Don told him. "My brother and I took care of the guy in the van. Your wife has a nasty bump on her head and needs to be untied, but otherwise she's perfectly okay."

Standing slowly, Smythe held a hand out to Leo, who took it solemnly.

"I don't understand who you are, but thank you," Smythe said. Looking around the lobby, he met each of the Turtle's eyes as he said, "My thanks to all of you."

Releasing his hand, Leo reached down and touched one of the little girls on the head, smiling when she grinned up at him.

"You don't need to thank us, this is what we do," Leo said. "We'd like to ask that you don't describe us to the authorities, just say some thoughtful citizens dressed in a similar manner as these men came in to help you."

"But the cameras . . . ." Smythe began.

"Won't have filmed a thing," Leo said. "The police will think these men disabled them and there's no reason why they shouldn't be left to think exactly that."

As their father talked to Leo, the two boys looked at each other and then glanced behind them. Backing away slowly, Damien and Walter spun away from their father, twin smiles splitting their faces from ear to ear as they raced to where Raph and Mikey were standing together.

"You guys are awesome!" Damien announced in an excited rush.

His younger brother was jumping up and down next to him, eyes fixed on Mikey's nunchakus.

"Do it again, do it again!" little Walter chanted over and over.

Raph and Mikey exchanged glances; then with a grin, Mikey pulled one of his nunchucks and began spinning it high above their heads.

"Wow," Damien said in an impressed tone.

"You, you, you," Walter insisted, staring a Raph.

Raph slipped a sai from his belt and spun it in one hand before flipping it up and catching the tip on one of his fingers.

"I wanna be able to do that," Damien said. "How'd you learn?"

"Years of practice kid," Raph said smugly, balancing his sai effortlessly.

"We started training when we were younger than your brother," Mikey said as he continued to spin the nunchuck for a slightly mesmerized Walter.

"If I started now, do you think I could ever be as good as you guys?" Damien asked.

"Dunno why not," Raph said; twisting his hand so quickly it was a blur as the sai flew up and was caught in Raph's other hand.

"I can learn too!" Walter said indignantly.

"Sure you can," Mikey told him, switching hands without losing any momentum on the nunchakus spin. "You have to practice a lot."

"I'm gonna use those," Walter said as he pointed towards the twirling weapon overhead.

"I'm going to learn how to use those," Damien said, his eyes fixed on Raph's sais.

"It's called a Sai," Raph said. "Ya' gotta learn how ta defend yourself with just your hands first before anyone will teach ya' how ta use one of these."

"Okay," Damien agreed matter-of-factly. "I'm gonna learn it right so nobody ever messes with my family again."

"Yeah," Walter said, nodding his head seriously.

"Damien, Walter," their father called, "come over here. These men have to go so we can call the police."

Mikey stopped spinning his weapon, catching both handles and shoving the nunchuck back into his belt. Walter reached out and touched it quickly before racing back to his father.

Damien started after him but stopped after two steps and looked towards Raph with pleading eyes. A tiny smile curved Raph's lip as he held his sai out to the kid and grew slightly bigger when Damien took it into both of his hands with a great deal of reverence

Mindful that his father was waiting, Damien handed it back to Raph and whispered, "Thank you," before following his younger brother.

Don was kneeling next to his bag, checking that the signal to jam the cameras hadn't been disturbed during the fight. Approaching footsteps brought his head up just in time to catch the bundle of childish joy who flung herself into his arms.

Katie wrapped her arms tightly around her hero's neck and squeezed as hard as she could. Don was a little disconcerted but instinctively returned the hug, patting her shoulder with one hand.

When she drew back from him, she had a hold on his mask tails and was running them across her palms. Head down for a moment, Katie seemed to be trying to decide something and Don waited patiently.

"Thank you for saving us Mr. Purple," Katie said in a voice barely above a whisper.

Don smiled. "My name is Don and you are very welcome, Katie."

Katie looked up then, her wide blue eyes reminiscent of Mikey's. "You aren't going to ever leave New York are you, Don?" she asked.

"No. This is my home," Don told her.

"That's good," Katie said with a breathy sigh. "When I grow up I'm going to marry you."

Before Don had a chance to formulate a reply, Katie's father called for her. She looked over her shoulder at him and then quickly turned back so that she could drop a kiss on Don's cheek. Releasing his mask, she darted across the room to her family.

A chorus of goodbyes followed the four turtles as they took the stairs back up to the roof and ran for several blocks over neighboring buildings before coming to a stop. As the four paused to listen, they heard the sound of sirens approaching and when they looked down they saw a number of emergency vehicles speed past on their way to the bank.

"We did a great thing tonight guys," Mikey said softly.

"Beautifully executed bro's," Leo said with a smile, drawing one from each of his siblings. "Let's call it a night, shall we?"

"I'm for that," Raph told him, clapping Leo lightly on the carapace.

Don shifted his bag into a more comfortable position and looked up to see his brother's watching him.

"I could share that load for a while, Donny," Raph offered.

"We'd be happy to take a turn," Mikey told him.

Don shook his head, grinning at the unusual gesture. Patting his duffel bag, Don said, "Nope, this is my burden and one I am more than happy to carry."

The End


End file.
